Introduction and Background
Discuss about the Freshii is a Canadian fast casual restaurant franchise that serves burritos, wraps, soups, salads, and frozen yogurt.
The aim of this study is to compose a case on the Canadian fast casual restaurant Freshii and provide information regarding its operations. The study would be looking at some online sources of the organization, especially their website and newspaper articles. The scope of this study is finding out about the concept of the restaurant and the evolution it had. The study would also be analyzing the current position of the restaurant in the market. Freshii is known for serving wraps, burritos, salads, soups and frozen yoghurt. It came into being in the year 2005, founded by CEO Matthew Corrin. The restaurant was inspired from New York delis which were offering fresh food. The restaurant was originally called “Lettuce Eatery”, opening to large queues on the first day itself. The restaurant has shown rapid expansion in Latin America too. The chain also has meal boxes included in their menu at majority of the locations, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks all focused on healthy eating. The restaurant belongs to the fast casual dining industry, which do not offer full table service, but makes to be providing better quality food than the other fast food restaurants. The base of this industry is the intermediation between fast food and casual dining and the prices are set accordingly. The origin of this dining concept was in United Sates in the early 1990s. The industry saw an increased sales during the economic recession in 2007-08. These kind of dining outlets have higher check averages, targets mostly adults who are looking for a more upscale fare. These dining outlets generally have upscale décor and are identified by their atmosphere. The foods at these restaurants are made fresh and they either get brought at the table or the customer receives it at the counter (Freshii.com, 2017).
Company profile
The founder of the restaurant, Matthew Corrin got the inspiration for his restaurant from the “mom-and-pop” delis that sold fresh food but was lacking in branding and service. He was wishing to add magic to the whole fresh food business and provide a proper brand to the community of fresh food. In 2005 he founded Freshii. The main idea that he had in mind was creating a model that would be branded, scalable and would be improving the way people are eating around the world. The mission of the restaurant is to help the citizens all across the world to be living a better life by means of having healthy food that are bothaffordable and convenient to have. Freshii has their operations in hundreds of locations across cities and countries all around the world. Corrin received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 under 30, Canada’s Top 40 under 40, and Canadian Association of Foodservice Professionals Restaurateur of the Year. Corrin has made sure that everything the customers are getting from the store are naturally biodegradable to the earth or easily recyclable, by using everything that is eco-friendly and natural (Reuters.com, 2017).
Details
Company evolution
Freshii has a very simple mantra – eat and energize. The restaurant is dedicated to serving fresh food that is completely designed for energizing people on the go. They have a diverse and totally customizable set of choices of breakfast soups, salads, wraps, bowls, burritos, frozen yogurt, juices and smoothies all served in a completely eco-friendly environment. Freshii makes sure they are catering to every kind of taste and dietary preferences. Freshii can be found in all types of locations starting from cosmopolitan cities, college campuses, suburban neighborhoods and malls to fitness clubs, airports and small towns (Spence, 2014). Since the founding of the restaurant it has managed to expand in over 100 locations across the world, having franchises in Germany, Saudi Arabia and Guatemala. By September 2015, Freshii counted 244 locations in Europe, North America and South America, all the while receiving more than 4000 franchise applications every year. Alone in 2016, the company managed to open per week an average of 3.5 new stores, which made the total count go up to 220 stores in 20 countries. 12 years later, the company today is holding an IPO and is very swiftly becoming the fastest developing fast casual healthy food chain in the world (Modesto, 2017).
Current position
The landscape of fast casual dining restaurants are changing and the world is now built on speed, innovation and efficiency. That is why Freshii has managed to become a big player in the market – a possibly billion dollar company. Freshii had aimed at adding around 150-160 more franchised restaurants by the end of 2017, which is its first year as a publicly traded company. When its fiscal year ended on Dec 25th, it reported having 278 locations and $16.1-million (U.S.) in revenue, which is an increase by $11.1-million from the previous year. Freshii counts on their rising customer appetite for having healthy food for powering their ambitious growth plan that would see the restaurant chain having more than triple franchised locations in the next three years. Instead of just looking at the growth of the organization, the focus should be on the unprecedented amount of money they have spent for achieving that growth. The company hardly spent any money on franchise advertising and received a lot less in funding. Despite that their sales growth beat all publicly traded rivals. Keeping in mind the needs of their customers they even introduced the meal box concept, which had four different variants to it (Saiidi, 2015).
Company profile
Performance
Corrin has made sure he carefully studied the entire best and biggest brands in the world to know what made them tick. The company managed to rule the national headlines when Corrin released an open letter to McDonald’s. Corrin challenged the fast food giant for offer healthier options. This stunt of pushed him towards popularity, then he appeared on Undercover Boss and introduced a burrito deal. Freshii managed adopting Chipotle’s traditionally supreme marketing methods and focused on emphasizing on transparency and freshness. This helped the brand appeal to the millennials, attracting younger customers and franchisees. Freshii also focused on being omnipresent; focusing on having more partnerships so that healthy food is more easily accessible. Each 70 days Freshii brings really healthy menu items for their customers. The business has a knock-off-centric business model, constantly shifting menu items for keeping up with the latest healthy trends in the world. The brand males sure they are picking the best ingredients for their customers, healthier food that would help keeping them energized and not put them in a food coma. People are looking for a faster, healthy custom-made food option, but at a reasonable price, also wanting a brand that makes sure to support philanthropic endeavors (Ellis, 2017).
Prediction
Today, restaurants are looking for fast success, even the startups. For that the restaurants would be needing a celebrity chef or at least have someone who has a name in the industry. The restaurants would also be focusing on getting some skilled sommeliers and world class bartenders. These essentials would very soon become the necessary backbone trait that would be coveted by the following public completely, as a savvy public would bring with them more detailed expectations. The guests would be allowed to live their individual energized lives, no matter what it looks for them (Taylor, 2016). From the current trend it can be understood that dining in future would become more craveable and clean, all the while ramping up digital buying with the help of web, mobile and kiosks. There would open up more opportunities with the help of third-party delivery as online ordering would continue rising. Online promotions would carry on encouraging customers to place their orders. The future would see the growth having a significant influence on real estate selection and the size of the restaurants. Value defined in many ways would be playing a big role in the industry. That value can be regarding low prices and/or regarding quality for the price asked for and the experience the customers would be receiving (Thompson, 2016).
Conclusion
This study is a case on the Canadian fast casual restaurant Freshii and provided information regarding its operations. The study looked at some online sources of the organization, especially their website and newspaper articles. This study found out about the concept of the restaurant and the evolution it had. It also analyzed the current position of the restaurant in the market. Based on the discussion, some recommendations can be provided for Freshii. Freshii must completely focus on providing value to their customers, but keep in mind not to be cutting their profit level too low due to deep discounts, free offers and coupons. Freshii must add more items to their value menus, keeping in mid the price bracket. Freshii must focus more on advertising, especially if they are adding any new items or any new range that can be appealing to a variety of diners. They must keep in mind that the balance remains in the special priced menu by elimination of multiple options
References
Ellis, P. (2017). Freshii CEO sees healthy growth prospects as company goes public – Article – BNN.BNN. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://www.bnn.ca/freshii-ceo-sees-healthy-u-s-growth-prospects-1.661756
Freshii.com. (2017). Freshii.com. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://www.freshii.com/ca
Modesto, R. (2017). Freshii’s IPO: What you need to know before taking a bite. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/research-reports/freshii-ipo-fresh-eats-and-a-fresh-issue-on-the-tsx/article33575532/
Reuters.com. (2017). Freshii Inc (FRII.TO). Reuters.com. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/company-profile/FRII.TO
Saiidi, U. (2015). Could this be the next healthy-eating success story?. CNBC. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/01/freshii-rides-fast-casual-trend.html
Spence, R. (2014). Freshii founder’s plan to build a billion-dollar brand — and change the world.Financial Post. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/freshii-founders-plan-to-build-a-billion-dollar-brand-and-change-the-world
Taylor, K. (2016). This up-and-coming restaurant chain studied McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Chipotle to take them down. Business Insider. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://www.businessinsider.in/This-up-and-coming-restaurant-chain-studied-McDonalds-Starbucks-and-Chipotle-to-take-them-down/articleshow/50882704.cms
Thompson, P. (2016). How Freshii is riding the health food boom and finding inspiration from fast fashion to fuel its rapid expansion. Financial Post. Retrieved 16 December 2017, from https://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/how-freshii-is-riding-the-health-food-boom-and-finding-inspiration-from-fast-fashion-to-fuel-its-rapid-expansio